


Carly and the Cons

by Xipholynx



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Found Family, Gen, Genious!Carly, Muggle Amongst Wizards, science vs magic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-10-18
Packaged: 2020-10-13 15:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20585048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xipholynx/pseuds/Xipholynx
Summary: Carly is a human who cannot use magic and, instead of living timid and withdrawn like she is supposed to, is instead driven by science and an attitude that will never quite give up.Within a year of the Transformers ‘waking’ and becoming part of the world Carly figures out how to make a basic form of energon. She needs to get into regular contact with the aliens in order to improve the formula and advance both their lives and human lives with science instead of magic.She ends up barred from the Autobot base thanks to Spike’s advice to the Autobots that she would always be a liability and unsafe to be around. So she stubbornly approaches her only other option-the Decepticons. None of the Decepticons are interested in having a ‘pet’ human - let alone one without any ‘useful’ ability - but Scavenger decides to take a chance on her and slowly the other Constructicons come along for the ride.One part story of the week, one part adventure, two parts friendship, a good chunk of humor, a dash of drama, a sprinkling of pseudo-science, mixed and freshly served!





	1. A Prologue to Devastation

Neither the Decepticons or the Autobots considered whether or not the organic lifeforms known as humans would be a threat to them when they woke up on Earth after spending 4 million years in stasis. Humans were both tiny and organic after all - even the smallest of the awakened Cybertronians (the cassettes and the minibots) towered over most humans at 7 feet tall at their shortest while in their base forms.

Things changed though when the Decepticons decided to attack an oil rig in order to steal from it to make themselves some energon. At most the only resistance they expected was having rocks or other primitive tools thrown at them alongside some ineffective shouting and threats

What they got instead was a lot of electricity, water, and metal rising up to challenge them.

The first to be counterattacked was Rumble, who was charging towards the frightened humans like some type of robotic wrestler looking to give a smackdown of epic proportions to his opponent. At least up until he backed Sparkplug Witwicky into a corner and moved to hit him. Sparkplug shoved back at him - his hands crackling with what Rumble had assumed was just a little bit of static - up until 500,000 volts suddenly jolted into his system, causing Rumble to let out a startled and slightly pained yelp until he jerked away from Sparkplug's hands.

Seeing the fact that he caused his attacker to retreat Sparkplug began to rally the human workers together. "Everyone non-electric skilled get over to the insulated platform! They're made of metal! Everyone electric skilled use your strongest tricks and get them off this rig!"

Only five other workers joined up with Sparkplug - an oil rig in the middle of the ocean tended to have more water and metal skilled users after all - but the Decepticons were caught off guard as the six humans began attacking them with what amounted to be a barrage of focused high voltage lightning attacks.

The Decepticons were forced to change their tactics and flew above the oil rig in order to shoot down at the humans from above. One of the humans turned out to be able to call down lightning directly from the sky though, so they were forced to move evasively as they attacked. Water spouts and giant waves began to rise out of the ocean around the Decepticons and at random intervals, a barrage of metal spinning saws and spikes would be launched at great speeds from the humans on the rig towards the Decepticons. 

The Decepticons would’ve had a very humiliating defeat if Starscream, along with some help from Skywarp and Thundercracker, hadn’t come up with a way to force all the humans off the rig and into the water by making a few risky but very fast and close maneuvers that formed a gust of hurricane-force winds right on the oil rig. Once the humans were in the ocean they poured some oil down into it and set it aflame in order to distract the humans so the Decepticons could now begin to make their energon cubes.

Unfortunately for them less than a minute later the Autobots finally arrived to challenge them. Megatron ordered the Decepticons to tear the oil rigs completely apart as they fell back to retreat. The resulting destruction was enough of a hazard that the Autobots stayed back to provide search and rescue operations to assist the humans from being harmed.

The goodwill of the Autobots was enough to spark the beginnings of both a partnership and a growing friendship between the Autobots of Cybertron and humanity as a whole, with Sparkplug Witwicky and his son Spike being the defacto liaisons between the Autobots and everyone else at the insistence of Optimus Prime.

And so the Autobots learned about humanity and Earth while the Decepticons learned their own (painful) lessons through their own experiences.

It turned out humans could use what they called 'magic' or 'talent' which allowed them to resonate and use what they called elements: water, fire, air, earth, aether, stone, wood, metal, and electricity. They could control these forces with different levels of skill as well as produce more of their element or in some cultures, they used elemental energy to perform spells that reflected characteristics of their element.

The Autobots human friends were no exception to this. Sparkplug Witwicky was an electric type human and had no problems defending himself from Decepticons using his bare hands to discharge large voltages to get out of harm's way. Decepticons, including Megatron himself, were always very wary around him and took great pains to never have to touch him.

Spike Witwicky, his teenage son, was a metal type human who wasn't damaging to pick up but he was frustrating to deal with. His favorite trick was to coat himself in a hard but flexible metal shell that made him impossible to be crushed or damaged significantly at all.

Chip Chase was a stone type human and could form crystals and silicate minerals with such fine precision that he was skilled enough to aid Ratchet in making delicate components for use in the Med Bay. Similarly to Spike, he could also coat himself in a diamond shell in order to protect himself from being crushed or damaged.

The Decepticons did eventually manage to get themselves at human ally called Dr. Arkeville, who was an electric type human. He didn't have as much voltage and raw power as Sparkplug, however, and instead simply used his power to design equipment for himself that never needed batteries or a power source outside himself, so Megatron tired of him very quickly. So he ended up being left with Shortwave on Cybertron to deal with within just a week of their so-called partnership.

So it soon came to pass that nearly a year passed from the reveal of the Transformers on Earth. Then, without either the Autobots or the Decepticons noticing it, in an empty MIT lab over in Massachusetts, a student attached a small machine to an electric generator and a holographic substance somewhat reminiscent of both a liquid and an energy field - energon - came pouring out. She smiled.

Carly was ready to go looking for the Transformers now.

Prologue End


	2. A Human Without Magic...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Carly meets the Autobots.

A Human Without Magic...

**SOMEWHERE IN UTAH**

Some heads definitely turned when the maroon red classic convertible pulled into the truck stop, and not just because of the great condition of the car. The driver looked every inch like some kind of Hollywood driven future movie star with shoulder-length golden blonde hair, sky blue eyes that seemed to shine in the sun, and a big sparkling smile that showed enthusiasm for life.

She stepped into the shop with a confident gait and gave a friendly nod to the clerk before she made her way to the cooler in the back in order to pick out a can of cola. She then made her way towards the register - grabbing a bag of sunflower seeds and a chocolate bar on her way up.

"Anything else I can get for you, Miss?" the clerk asked as he absently waved his hand, letting the air skirt across the floor to sweep up the dust that had been accumulating.

"Yes, I'd like to get ten dollars of gas - I've still got a long way to go." She requested even as she picked out a magazine from the stand to add to her pile - the front of it showcased a candid photo of two robotic aliens (a red one and a yellow one) going into a storefront tall enough for them to easily enter, the shop was a car detailing place. There was also a corner photo of Michael Jackson with the caption _'Is He Firing Up or Electrifying His Fans Hearts? Exclusive Interview Inside!'_

"Certainly, Miss." The clerk said as he began to ring her up. "Are you heading for California?"

"No, up to Oregon." She replied with a smile. "I'm moving to Central City."

The clerk barked out a short laugh. "The robot capital of the world, eh? Better keep an eye out for those aliens out there."

She smiled again, brighter than ever, and said. "That's the plan."

The clerk raised his eyebrows but bagged up her snacks, drink, and magazine as he said, "Well if that's the case, better keep your talent at the ready at all times. Better safe than sorry after all. Your total is 13.55."

"Thanks for the advice."

With a spring in her step, she turned and made her way back to her car. The clerk shook his head, teens these days had no sense of self-preservation. Who wanted to get closer to giant alien robots?

**A Few Days Later**

**Robot’s Video Arcade, Central City**

Carly checked her energon detecting radar one last time to make sure that she had the right location and stepped into the arcade. The games in the front part of the arcade were mostly empty of players. This seemed to be thanks to a sizable crowd on the far end of the room who were gathered around an Autobot. He stood head and shoulders above the gathered teens as he played a game, slightly hunched over thanks to his height.

He was pushing nine feet tall and was predominantly a powdery yellow color. He had black tires where his shoulder blades would be as a human and his head was shaped like the helmet of a knight from the middle ages, only he had a pair of nubs shaped like triangular puppy ears on the top of his head.

She walked closer and finally could see the profile of his face. His eyes looked similar to video camera lenses only they had some sort of electric sky blue backlighting to them. His face was a series of intricate interlocking plates - he had several dark seams running in geometric lines that gave him the impression of being rosy-cheeked despite not having blood. All in all, he was a very cute looking robotic life form. 

There was one teenage boy standing closer to the Autobot than the others were. He was leaning against the game the Autobot was playing and Carly deduced he was probably Spike Witwicky, the Autobot social liaison. 

“Excuse me, may I cut in?” Carly asked, tapping the brown-haired boy leaning against the console on his back.

“Oh, you’ll have to wait your turn I-” He said before he turned all the way around and his jaw dropped, “-I…”

Carly smiled at him and said, “I see you're friends with that cute Autobot. Could you introduce me to him?”

“You want to meet him?” He seemed startled and stammered as he pointed to his Autobot companion. 

Carly nodded her head and Spike mumbled, “Yeah, sure.”

The game seemed to come alive with flashing lights and some kind of bell to indicate a new high score. The group of teens surrounding the Autobot let out an enthusiastic cheer and even as he turned around he gave a hammed-up bow of an entertainer to the teens who were cheering for him.

Spike raised his voice to be heard over the crowd and said, “Bumblebee this is uh, is…somebody named-”

Seeing that the Autobot was looking at her now she blurted out, “Carly. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Bumblebee.”

She walked over to him and reached her hand out to his, which he took without hesitation to shake in the formal human greeting the Autobots had all learned. 

While they were still shaking hands though, Spike nearly shoved Carly aside to get between the two and turning to Bumblebee said, “Uh, Bumblebee? Remember Wheeljack’s polarizer? We should’ve been back with it hours ago.”

Even as Spike ushered Bumblebee away he turned to her and gave a jaunty wave and said, “Well I hope to see you again, Carly.”

Carly moved outside and was surprised to see the other teen was already climbing into the passenger side of an adorable yellow Volkswagen beetle that she was very certain was the Autobot she had been speaking with. Did Bumblebee turn into a bug? How cute was that! 

Bumblebee was already driving away so Carly wasted no time and hopped into her own car to follow them. He had said he hoped to see her again, after all.

Carly waited just outside the city, keeping an eye on her radar to watch the little blip she had labeled as Bumblebee in order to see where it went and was glad she had. A large gathering of energon spots (including Bumblebee) had moved from their volcano base over to somewhere else in the mountains. She could spot another similarly sized cluster of energon moving inland from the Pacific ocean too when she zoomed out her radar as far as it could go - the Decepticons most likely.

If she could get a closer look at them, she might get to see some of their technology first hand! Carly drove up the mountain on a well-packed dirt road until she was a little further than a mile away from where the Autobots had gathered up together. From there she picked up her essential tools and equipment into a tool belt filled with pouches and began to hike towards the gathering.

She kept one eye on her surroundings and another on the dots of energon as she hiked around in order to come from the opposite side of where the Decepticons were coming from. They were moving in very fast and as much as she wanted to see their advanced technology, she didn’t want to be caught up between the two sides when they came into contact with each other.

One of the Autobot dots had previously broken away from the main group and had seemed to be doing a quickly paced perimeter check. It suddenly reversed from the pattern it had been making, which would’ve allowed him to intercept the incoming Decepticons, and began to make a b-line right in her direction.

Carly stared down at the radar in surprise - had she been detected by the Autobot somehow? Why would an Autobot focus on her instead of the incoming Decepticons? Didn’t the Autobots have energon detection technology as she did?

Her mental questions were halted when she heard the sound of a photon rifle blast and then heard the sound of a tree cracking and crashing down to the ground. The top of a tree crashed down on top of her and less than a minute later it was being lifted up off from her. Fortunately, she wasn’t injured at all.

The Autobot’s voice was sort of gruff as he scolded her. “What are you doing here? This area is off-limits to civilians.” 

It was a red and white Autobot with black limbs, this one was nearly sixteen feet tall and strong enough to lift Carly up from the ground just by cupping his hands to support her. His helmet had a crest on it like a Roman centurion’s and he had similar eyes as Bumblebee - like camera lens with blue backlighting. He had black seams coming down from each optic giving him a face that seemed longer and more solemn-looking than Bumblebee's face.

Feeling a little embarrassed over being caught so easily she said, “I’m sorry, I just wanted to watch. I think you Autobots are totally incredible.”

Their conversation was interrupted by what sounded like shots similar to the one that toppled the tree onto her. A lot of it. “There’s trouble brewing. Excuse me.”

He gently placed Carly back onto her feet and quickly began to run in the direction where the sounds of the shooting were coming from.

Carly ran after him. When she arrived at the scene of the fight she nearly gasped out loud. It was one thing to mentally acknowledge the fact that giant alien robotic lifeforms were having a war on Earth and see glimpses of them from newspapers and tv but it was something else entirely to see literal giants right in front of her. They ranged from around 9 feet tall all the way up to pushing 25 feet while Carly was only 5 feet 4 inches.

In an area the size of a stadium both groups were fighting already - mostly utilizing photon and laser fire and some kind of force field shielding. Not a lick of magic was being used by either side. She did spot Spike as well amidst all the chaos, his skin was completely coated in metal. The most danger he was in was becoming a tripping hazard for everyone else.

She was itching to begin logging some data about the fight. She easily recognized both Optimus Prime and Megatron but didn't know the names of any of the other aliens aside from Bumblebee since they hadn't been publicized at all. She noticed several things about the two groups now that she could visually compare them to each other. The Decepticons biggest difference (aside from their purple insignias) was that their lens-like eyes had red backlighting instead of the Autobot’s electric blue. Was that a cosmetic choice or did the different backlighting colors provide different types of vision?

One of the jet-type Decepticons shot out a very unusual bomb-type weapon that ricocheted off different trees and boulders exploding each time it touched something. It even bounced close to her, making her scramble to dodge away from another falling tree. 

Thanks to this Spike spotted her and shouted, “Carly!? What are you doing here?”

Carly jumped away from another falling tree and shouted back, “Dodging, mostly.”

The bouncing bomb was beginning to do more harm to the Decepticons rather than the Autobots. Because of this Megatron turned into a gun and fell into the hands of the royal blue and white Decepticon who shot a large, destructive blast towards the bomb and destroyed it in one hit. (Carly wondered why Megatron turned into a gun of all objects? Was the accurate shot due to Megatron's own skills or the skills of the Decepticon who took the shot?)

The red Autobot who had found her earlier was trying to retrieve some yellow mechanical device on the ground and one of the jet-type Decepticons (the predominantly red and blue one) charged forward to attack the red Autobot in a physical assault. The Autobot noticed him and shot something out of his gun that looked like some kind of dark viscous fluid.

"Starscream, retreat!" Megatron ordered.

"A Decepticon never retreats!" The Decepticon Starscream shouted back defiantly before falling flat on his face into the oily substance all over the ground. Though this also knocked the machine he was after onto the ‘frozen’ solid river that Megatron and the rest of his Decepticon soldiers were standing on. (How had that happened? Carly wondered. Was that what the Autobots had been gathered out here in the woods for?)

“The immobilizer is mine!”

The Decepticon, Starscream, was trying to get back to the others of his group but seemed to be very off balance and kept stumbling into trees and tripping over the underbrush as though he were dizzy or intoxicated. Carly covered her mouth in an attempt to muffle her laughter. (How cute! Like a klutzy puppy or kitten, even if he was a 20 foot tall evil Decepticon.)

"You’re losing your warriors, Megatron." Optimus Prime warned Megatron.

As Starscream finally made it back to Megatron’s side instead of listening Megatron just snapped back. "Warriors are expendable! The most important thing is I get what I deserve! And I always do."

The river at that very moment unfroze and for a split second, the Decepticons seemed to hover in place before they all fell into the river and were swept away by the heavy torrent.

A dark grey Autobot let out an amused laugh and said. "You deserved that, all right, Mega-jerk. Rust in peace!"

The other Autobot’s shared a laugh at his quip and then gathered around an Autobot that seemed to be frozen solid in place.

"We can deal with the Decepticons later." Optimus Prime said. “We’ve got to take Wheeljack back to headquarters. Let’s hope the immobilization effect is as temporary on him as it was on the river.”

“Let’s get back to headquarters everyone!” Bumblebee called out to the other Autobots, causing them to mobilize. They all transformed into their vehicle forms and were beginning to leave.

“Can I come with you?” Carly blurted out before she could stop herself.

Spike was getting into Bumblebee’s passenger side and he looked up at her. He didn’t even hesitate to waive his arm in a beaconing gesture and said, “Sure, follow us.”

Once they were back at Autobot Headquarters Carly found that she couldn’t really do much without an escort. All the Autobots were still scrambling about to prepare for when the Decepticons would show themselves again. She learned the red Autobot’s name was Ironhide and she waited outside the repair bay area next to Spike in order to speak with him.

She heard his voice before he appeared and was saying, “It really was my fault - you can’t trust my judgment anymore Optimus - not when the spark in my core had me go after a human girl instead of incoming Decepticons.”

“Well I hate to see you go - but I will accept your judgment for now. Consider yourself on medical leave rather than fully retired if you must. Losing you would cost us dearly my friend.”

“Ironhide wants to retire? I can’t believe it!” Spike unhelpfully spoke up and Carly jumped up to her feet once the repair bay doors opened and Ironhide walked out, not stopping for any pleasantries.

“Ironhide, please wait, I want to talk with you.” She ran after him and when he stopped a hall later to glance down at her Carly said, “I wanted to apologize Ironhide. What happened in the forest wasn’t your fault, it was mine. If I hadn’t been sneaking around you would’ve been able to intercept the Decepticons before they arrived.” 

Ironhide let out a huff of frustration and said, “Maybe so, but I can’t let my irrational sparking feelings put my friends in danger again.”

Carly definitely felt sympathetic over his plight and said, “Well, promise to at least think it over Ironhide… and while you do that could you show me around Autobot headquarters, please?”

“Well sure, I guess I could at least do that for you. Don’t expect to see any of those fancy human magic tricks though.” Ironhide warned, not wanting her to get her hopes up.

“Can you show me your energon distillers? And your generators?” Carly asked, feeling so excited she nearly skipped along beside Ironhide. 

“Gosh, I haven't seen any human this excited just to see all our mess hall,” Ironhide said with a chuckle. “I’ll show you more than just that, Carly.”

After a quick stop to the places Carly had requested to see, Ironhide took her to a side room and Carly tried not to feel lightheaded when she saw just how much armament was in just one room. 

“This is where we store some of our ammo. Course we'd rather not have any of this stuff around. But until the Decepticons change, or we pacify 'em once and for all we have what we must.”

“Someone should pacify those Decepticons...and their underwater headquarters,” Carly said with a scowl, how could she advance society when there was a war going on. Ironhide didn’t try hiding the grin crossing his face. Even though he had been having an awful day Carly’s enthusiasm and snark were definitely growing on him.

He didn’t spot Carly grabbing a few components while they were there and was a little sad to see her go as she later said, “I need to grab something out of my car. I’ll be back soon.”

An hour later Carly had already driven to an ocean boat rental place and was trying to convince the dockmaster that she wanted to go scuba diving since she was ‘going into college this fall to study oceanography’ as her cover story,

"Are you sure you want to take that boat? That outboard motor is a little outdated. One of these other motors would be completely silent as you go about - you won’t attract any attention from the violent alien robots in the area this way. Even the smallest hint of resonating energy will power this boat for hours, a toddler would have enough magic to make it work. It's a scientific marvel for this new era of sailing the seas."

"Does the new off-board motor work without any magic?" Carly asked, skeptically.

"Of course not." The dockmaster replied.

"Then it isn't a scientific marvel, it's a magical marvel." Carly corrected before adjusting the radar now attached to her arm and started the motor in order to begin heading out. Or at least she would've if the dockmaster hadn't waved his hand, creating a whirlpool that turned Carly's boat back to the dock.

“Oh no, you don’t. You’re talentless, aren’t you? It’s much too dangerous for you to go off on your own like this. Shouldn’t you have a minder to watch over you?” The dockmaster scolded, as though Carly were a wayward five-year-old.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” Carly protested. “I don’t need a minder! I’m a college student! Even when I was younger I sailed by myself loads of times off Cape Cod and around Boston Harbor.” 

The doubtful expression on the Dock Master’s face didn’t change. “No talent - no boating or scuba diving alone. You’re the one who wants to rent the gear. Once you have someone to cosign who does have a talent you can come back, but until then get back on the dock and find a safer activity to do on your vacation, young lady.”

Having been prevented from storming the Decepticon’s base on her own she drove up the beach to an area that had more cliffs overhanging the shore and parked while trying to think about what she could do to really seal her placement as a permanent invitee to the Autobot headquarters. Attacking the Decepticons would’ve created some solidarity but she couldn’t even get to them right now.

She watched the radar and saw that the Autobots had left their headquarters as well as the Decepticons. If her calculations were correct they would meet about a mile up the shore on the beach. Even though she didn’t get a chance at attacking the Decepticon’s home base as she originally planned she could probably help out in the battle and have the same effect.

When she arrived at the beach where the battle was taking place, she noticed that the Autobots were being frozen one after another by the yellow machine which was being controlled by a blue-and-purple 7 foot tall Decepticon (he was the smallest alien she had seen so far). “I’ve got to help them somehow.”

She spotted Ironhide standing at the far edge of the fight, looking like he wanted to jump in but had a conflicted expression on his face - likely from doubts about his own capabilities. The now depolarized Wheeljack was standing to his right and seemed to be trying to convince him to jump into the fight. Carly jogged over to them since they were the nearest to her.

“I came over as soon as I saw you all fighting! Is there anything I can do to help?” Carly asked.

“Not unless you have a fancy human trick that could get me closer to the immobilizer in order to reverse the ion streams.” Wheeljack replied before continuing, “After everyone is depolarized Ironhide here can just destroy it.”

Carly nodded seriously and turning to Ironhide said, “Get a distraction ready. I’m small and quick enough to get close to the immobilizer but need someone to cover me.”

Carly fearlessly made her way over to along the rim of the cliffs to the opposite side where the Decepticons were attacking from. Emboldened by Carly’s display, Ironhide ran down to the beach in order to work with a sonic-power using Autobot in order to create the perfect timing to create a distraction.

Just as Carly was creeping out from some boulders behind from where the comparatively smallish blue-and-purple Decepticon was standing with the immobilizer's remote control.

The sonic using Autobot at that moment put on a loud hypersonic music show, distracting the Decepticons from where Carly went over to the control panel in order to swap a few wires in order to reverse the ion flow of the immobilizer. Some water, ether, and stone powered humans could possibly create a similar freezing effect but this wasn’t a magic trick - this machine actually froze the molecules and atoms of an object using science! How exciting!

Carly made her escape with no problems and the music came to a stop - now instead of immobilizing the Autobots, the immobilizer was depolarizing the previously hit Autobots. 

“Decepticons! Return to base and bring the immobilizer! We’ll return and destroy Optimus Prime and the rest of the Autobots for good!” Megatron ordered.

Before the immobilizer could be retrieved, however, Ironhide grabbed it and smashed it into a wreck of parts - leaving the Decepticon’s without their prize. The Decepticon’s left in disgrace with Megatron vowing vengeance as they flew back over the ocean in the direction of their base.

“Thanks for reminding me that it’s about what kind of bravery you possess that makes you a good Autobot, and not based on any mistakes that are made,” Ironhide said and gratefully shook Carly’s hand.

“Good job with swapping the ion flow in the immobilizer Carly. How’d you know how to do it?” Wheeljack asked.

“Science and technology are my passions.” Carly replied modestly, “I just want to work with science and technology in order to improve the lives of both humans as well as you Cybertronians. Magic can’t fix everything after all.”

"So what's your talent anyway, Carly? You haven't mentioned it yet." Spike asked in curiosity. He had been partnered up with Bumblebee during the battle but had seen Carly fixing the Immobilizer all on her own amongst the Decepticons. "You've sure got nerves of steel going up to the Decepticons on your own. So are you a metal user like me?"

Carly figured now would be the time to admit her status. She figured she had proved herself to be capable of being involved with the aliens after all. "I don't have any resonance. I'm just a non-magical human."

"Oh wow! I didn't realize humans had a non-magical type." Wheeljack said, sounding interested already. Carly was happy he seemed impressed - at least until Spike reacted like a normal magical human usually did.

"You're talentless!? You look so normal though." Spike nearly shouted, embarrassing Carly with his tactlessness. "I was even going to ask you out."

"I'm talentless. That doesn’t mean I’m unskilled or unable to function." Carly retorted with a hint of temper in her voice.

Spike ignored her and looked over to Optimus Prime. "Optimus, Carly really shouldn't be allowed to be around you guys at all. When she gets captured by Decepticons she really would be killed by them it's too dangerous for both her and you all. Talentless humans are more trouble than they're worth."

"What do you mean by 'when' I get captured. I can take care of myself in a crisis you know. I'm not a weakling or a sissy." Carly said, mentally willing Optimus Prime to believe her.

"I apologize Carly." Optimus Prime said solemnly, causing her heart to sink. "Thank you for the assistance you gave today but Spike and his father Sparkplug have been our truest guides of humanity for a long time now and I heed to their experience when it comes to your society." 

Optimus changed his tone and based on the way the gathered Autobots were reacting this was an order and not a suggestion. "I will not be granting you open access to our base at this time and will not encourage my fellow Autobots to put you in danger by being around you. I ask that you do not return with us when we go back to Autobot Headquarters."

Ironhide sympathetically gave her a light pat on her back and said, “I’m sorry, Carly. I wish there were something I could do but I can’t go against Prime’s orders. I think you’re amazing though, even without any of those fancy human powers.”

“Thanks, Ironhide,” Carly replied dejectedly.

Long after the Decepticons and Autobots had long left the area and the sun had already set, Carly continued to sit in her car and wondered what she would do next.

...Is Not An Autobot Ally


	3. A Human With Creativity...

A Human With Creativity…

Brrring! Brrring!

Carly casually twisted the middle of the phone cord around her hand and arm as she waited for the line to pick up at the other end.

Brrring! Brrr!-

"Hello, this is Charles Park." A gruff voice with a Mid-Atlantic accent spoke when the line was finally answered.

"Hi, grandpa! It's Carly."

His voice became noticeably more enthusiastic and said, "Carly! Have you arrived in Central City? Will you tell me how you plan to meet up with one of those Autobot extraterrestrials?"

"I met with the Autobots yesterday - I even got a tour of their base," Carly said and tried not to be exasperated when her grandfather let out an excited shout.

"There's no doubt in my mind, they like you already don't they? They might be extraterrestrials but they can see my granddaughter is a genius with a bright future just like I do."

"Even if a few of them did seem to like me it doesn't matter anymore. The human liaison didn't seem to like the idea of me being talentless so I've already been restricted from contacting them again." Carly admitted.

"That fathead ought to be taught a lesson in good manners!" Her grandfather decided, angry on her behalf before softening his tone. "If you want to come home you can skip trying to get that grant MIT promised and I'll pay for you to go to Cambridge instead."

"You know I'd rather invent things and push scientific boundaries then run your business. I'm the adorable Tesla and you're the benevolent Edison, remember?" Carly said, refusing his offer for what felt like the thousandth time.

"Of course I remember." Her grandfather insisted. "You've inherited my unwavering spirit and I know you wouldn't be contacting me to tell me how unfair this world can be. I'm certain you already have a new plan of action. What I do to help you?"

"Since the Autobots won't work with me I've decided to approach their counterparts instead. I'm not going to just infiltrate their underwater headquarters and then start negotiating - that would be impolite. I just need you to fax me topographical maps of Oregon, Washington, and Northern California as well as the coordinates of every power plant within those locations. Include public, private, manned and unmanned stations both as old and as new as possible."

"Is getting into cahoots with the Decepticons really your only other option, Carly?" Her grandfather double-checked.

"In order to receive the grant to continue my research? It's my only option right now. I won't let anything stop me." Carly stubbornly insisted as she unwinded the phone cord from her arm.

Her grandfather let out a tired sigh but agreed to help. "I'll send you what you need by the end of the day. I love you so stay safe, Carly."

ONE WEEK LATER

AN UNMANNED WIND TURBINE PLANT IN WESTERN OREGON

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, there was a slight breeze low to the ground to keep the late summer air from getting too hot, and Frenzy checked his sensors for the third time in as many minutes in order to verify that there were no humans around at the unmanned power plant he was scouting out.

None of the Decepticons particularly liked being on Earth. The only remotely positive things about the blue plant were that the gravity and atmospheric pressure was nearly identical to Cybertron's so none of them needed upgrades or recalibrations just to walk around. That and that there were dozens of energy sources on Earth that just weren't available on Cybertron. Before coming to Earth having hydrogen water-wave energon was considered a luxury. Now with their main base of operations completely surrounded in water wave-energon was a part of everyone's meal rations.

The absolute worst thing about the Earth wasn't the weather, the dirt, the plants, or even the Autobots though. No, the worst thing about the Earth were the humans that lived on it.

Humans that could vanish without a trace even without cloaking technology. Humans that could envelop themselves with and control fire or electricity or gravitational forces like it was nothing. Humans that could summon rain and hail, that could sprout up trees, or metal spikes or diamond up from the ground instantly, or ones that were uncrushable, ungraspable, or just plain impossible to deal with. And worst of all: the humans that worked alongside the Autobots as so-called friends.

Soundwave's cassettes were the Decepticons who had the worst luck with human encounters. Aside from Rumble's literal shocking first encounter with Sparkplug Witwicky, he had also been encased in diamond by Chip Chase during one of his encounters and had received numerous dents from Spike Witwicky unexpectedly running into him. Ravage had been set on fire, frozen solid, electrocuted and sunken into stone during various encounters with different power plant workers. Laserbeak had been caught by suddenly sprouted trees, tossed around in hurricane-force gales, crushed by increased gravity, and nearly melted in a fireball.

Frenzy and Buzzsaw, fortunately, had fewer encounters with humans, and definitely nothing as serious as the other cassette's own encounters. Soundwave hadn't ever released Ratbat outside the base even once for a mission, even after nearly an entire Earth year of being awakened.

Frenzy's most frequent mission was to scout out power plants in order to signal to the other Decepticons when the best time to siphon off energy was. Even unmanned power stations had maintenance performed on them, after all.

There weren't any humans on the grounds at the power plant and he couldn't detect any of the human's odd machines approaching and so he commed Soundwave. "All clear, boss. Everything here is ready for a round of siphoning."

"Confirmation: Acknowledged. Stand by for arrival." Soundwave said in his usual manner of speaking.

So now Frenzy just needed to wait. Maybe he could begin to siphon off some energon from the wind turbines while he waited in order to warm up his circuits a bit while he waited for everyone to arrive.

Frenzy turned away from facing the forest and access road and walked over to one of the turbines (it was even taller than Devastator if his calculations were correct) and so missed it when a human emerged out from the surrounding forest and began to follow him.

Every Decepticon had been given a simple energy siphoning kit created by Shockwave as part of their official gear. It was light enough to be carried in their subspace and simple enough to operate, though it only made bright pink military-grade rations. Frenzy easily attached his gear to the output of the turbine and watched the cube of energon begin to fill out.

"Why is it pink?" A voice spoke up from about ten yards behind himself.

"Because it's military-grade - I haven't modified my kit to make anything better."

"Is the holographic kind any better?" The voice asked, sounding interested in the topic and Frenzy suddenly remembered that he had been alone last time he checked.

He spun around and nearly shorted out when he spotted the human standing right behind him like a terrifying monster from a horror movie.

It smiled at him and gave him a friendly hand wave. "Hello, you're a Decepticon aren't you? Can you get me in touch with your boss so I can speak to him?"

Frenzy felt very uncalibrated with the human's statement. "What business have you got with Soundwave?"

"Soundwave? No, I mean with Megatron - he's the leader of all the Decepticons isn't he?" The human clarified.

"Oh, you mean the big boss." Frenzy finally understood. He then pointed accusingly at the human and said, "What business do you have with Megatron?"

The human smiled and said the scariest thing Frenzy had heard since waking up on Earth. "Well since Optimus Prime decided it was too dangerous for the Autobots to be around me, I decided to check to see if the Decepticons would agree to work with me instead."

"H-he'll be here in only two breems with the boss and the seekers." Frenzy blurted out.

"Alright." The human said and waived its hand towards Frenzy's interrupted energon gathering activity. "So you say that pink energon is military grade? What about the holographic kind?"

Energon wasn't really a secret or anything so Frenzy decided it was a safe enough topic to discuss. "Holographic energon is usually high grade so it's a waste to use it for anything else but as food. The pink kind can be eaten but is tasteless so it can be used as a fuel source in an emergency. The purple stuff is only used in machines and you'd only eat it if you were starving for energy -it tastes awful. The blue stuff is for internal systems only - only a cannibalistic monster would ever eat it."

"Food, fuel, and blood. How neat is that!" The human said, confusing Frenzy again.

"What in the pit is blood?"

"It's the red liquid inside animals here on this planet. You could say it's the organic version of blue energon." The human explained.

"Ugh, that's disgusting." Frenzy said, nearly wanting to erase that fact from his memory file out of disgust. No wonder humans were such monsters when their internal energon was red.

"Do you mind if I watch you make more of the pink kind? It looks interesting." The human thankfully changed the subject and somewhat quietly watched him work with his equipment.

While it watched him work, Frenzy internally sent a comm to Soundwave so the incoming group wouldn't be surprised to see the human there when he had already given the all-clear. ::Boss? A human showed up by itself and wants to speak with Megatron. It isn't showing any hostile behavior at this time.::

::Report: Received. Standby for arrival.::

The human became alert and looked up towards the western horizon when the device attached to its arm began to make a rapid beeping noise. "They're coming in pretty fast it sounds like. We'll be able to see them in a few seconds."

Frenzy looked in the same direction as the human and sure enough, within a nanoclick Frenzy could spot his fellow Decepticons coming into view.

The human didn't show a single trace of fear or hostility when everyone landed (those being the only responses usually given towards a group of Decepticons) even though it was surrounded by them.

Soundwave touched down right beside Frenzy and Frenzy tried not to show how relieved it made him feel. Starscream, along with Thundercracker and Skywarp landed just beside a turbine each and had already made a ternary sweep of the area together, clearly wary of the possibility of a trap. Thrust, Dirge, and Ramjet had landed as close to the trees as possible without trying to show any obvious signs of fear. Rumble had already been deployed by Soundwave but he was standing next to Megatron. Megatron stared down at with a scowl at the human, his optics were shining with a contemplative expression.

Finally, Megatron spoke. “Who are you creature, to request an audience with me?”

Before the human could speak Skywarp cut in and said, “Isn’t she that human that sabotaged the immobilizer we stole from the Autobots a few cycles ago?”

Rumble’s optic band glowed in recognition and he added on. “That’s right - she rewired it while I was distracted.”

“Really?” Megatron's optics gleamed with this new insight. “Then you must be a friend of the Autobots- aren’t you?”

The human scowled and said, “No - Optimus Prime ordered me banned from their base since he believes it’s too dangerous for them to be around me. Maybe you could do what he couldn’t and become my ally instead.”

Frenzy fought the urge to slap his hand over his optics to block his vision of the incoming wreckage. He decided that the human was either too stupid to function or else was the smartest human he'd seen thus far. Challenging Megatron by pitting his pride against Optimus Prime's own failures was forcing Megatron to actually consider the human's request instead of dismissing them outright. It was a better opening gambit than what that low-voltage idiot Doctor Arkeville had tried. (Which had been flattery and empty grandiose promises.)

"My standards for humans far exceed Prime's own. I'm giving you the generous option of completing a challenge in order for you to prove to me that you are better than his collection of human pets. After you do that, I will consider your request seriously." Megatron said, figuratively laying down a gauntlet.

The human straightened up like its joints had locked and it said, "I'll take your challenge."

"You will present yourself before me in my Command Center on the Nemesis by exactly this time tomorrow - and you will only use your human skills to do so," Megatron ordered with a sinister grin.

The human agreed to Megatron's terms and left them to their energon collection (the coneheads only moved to the turbines once the human had vanished into the forest.) While they worked, uninterrupted for once, Megatron turned his attention over to Starscream.

"Once we return to the Nemesis make sure the security levels are increased up to Vos Level."

"You can't be serious Megatron." Starscream protested instantly, looking extremely offended. "Going to Vos Level just for one human performing an infiltration we already know it will attempt? That's like using a fusion cannon to incinerate a turbo rat already trapped in a cage."

"Either you stop that human from getting in or else I'll let it use its powers however it wishes on your half clocked chassis!" Megatron threatened Starscream viciously to which Starscream obeyed.

AT A PACIFIC NORTHWEST BEACH

TIME: 0001 HOURS

It was just a little bit past midnight while Carly performed a final check on her equipment before she would set out to complete the challenge Megatron had given to her. She had brought nearly all of her inventions, plus the rewired explosive she had picked up from the Autobots armory, and finally a specially created item she had spent most of the day making in case of an emergency.

Her energon radar was securely attached to her left arm while her portable energon distiller and dispenser was in a secure bag attached to her left hip. On her right arm, she had a brace of laser cutters at differing strengths. Her rewired explosive was secured in a similar pouch as her energon converter only it was secured on her right hip, a handful of miniature hologram projectors shared space with it. Her oxygen tanks for diving were secured against her back. She had a rebreather and diving goggles on as well as a set of ultrasonic-hypersonic-subsonic headphones. Lastly in a third tank between the two oxygen tanks was about 20 gallons of blue raspberry flavored jello under the same kind of pressure that a fire extinguisher had.

With all her equipment checked, she lifted her arm in order to look at her energon radar and confirmed that the Decepticon's base was around six miles offshore. She moved out and using a fiberglass boat with an off-board motor made her way into the ocean until she was two miles away from the underwater base.

She only had eight hours remaining to complete her challenge.

TIME: 0230 HOURS

The Nemesis had been on Vos Level alert ever since the return of Megatron the previous morning. This level of security was usually only active when an Autobot attack was incoming or if they had stolen something of high value from the humans. Every Decepticon was up and alert, ready to repel the invading forces sure to appear.

Starscream, as well as Thundercracker and Skywarp, were patrolling by air, watching for any incoming human ships or aircraft that tried to get within five nautical miles of the Nemesis while Blitzwing and Astrotrain patrolled the same area under the surface since they could swim the easiest.

When Thundercracker came across a tiny capsized fiberglass boat and he immediately scanned it's immediate surroundings while reporting to Starscream at the same time. "I found a human-sized boat at coordinates 62.76.1.2. Should we move the formation closer to the Nemesis to trap it underwater?"

Starscream scoffed and replied. "Don't bother. If the human was using a boat it likely isn't a water human. I'll tell Astrotrain and Blitzwing to monitor the waters around the Nemesis to see if the water pressure changes or if the temperature underwater heats up significantly without notice. Keep sweeping the surface until I tell you otherwise while I move in closer."

Around a breem or so later Astrotrain was reporting in as well. "Starscream. Can humans create their own separate organic creatures?"

"Of course not!" Starscream irritably snapped back. "Humans can only control forces of nature native to this planet. Not even botanic humans would be able to just create organic animals. At most they might be able to make a false puppet."

"So then what should I do about the gestalt sized sea creature heading towards the Nemesis?"

"I’ve told you a dozen times that if you leave the whales alone, they’ll leave you alone!" Starscream scolded in irritation. "Stop playing around like a freshly onlined sparkling and keep a lookout. We’re still at Vos Level!"

"It isn't a whale this time!" Astrotrain protested. "It's one of those squishy water spiders, only ten thousand times larger!"

"Then patch an image through back to Soundwave and if it’s actually important he can tell me himself!"

A few nanoclicks passed and Starscream vented in relief, he knew it hadn’t been important. It was insulting to have to go through such ridiculous lengths just to try to keep one human out of their base.

There was a hint of audio white noise and then Soundwave spoke to him as clearly as if they were in the same room. "Security update: Incoming megafauna approaching the Nemesis. Sensors indicate it is emitting photon-electric fields increasing both in activity and intensity as it approaches closer. Query: Should those on battle standby be sent out to repel the incoming organic?"

Starscream opened the data pack Soundwave sent along with his message which contained several images and nearly stalled his engines out from shock. Astrotrain hadn't been exaggerating about the scale of the octopus that was swimming its way directly towards the Nemesis. Its body was nearly the same size as the base and its tentacles were even longer!

Starscream was very close to expressing his feelings with loud and long swearing but instead opened an open channel to all Decepticons and said "The human has begun its attack to beech the Nemesis. It is very likely that the human is a wood human variety using some growth ability to increase the size of the organic animals. Everyone on battle standby download Soundwave's datafile before coming out here and prepare for aquatic battle against the human's giant organic cephalopod."

The port doors of the Nemesis smoothly opened up and most of the Decepticons began to move out into the water leaving just a scrap crew behind to secure the base.

TIME: 0320 HOURS

Carly couldn't be more delighted with the kind of good fortune she was having so far. She had come across a giant pacific octopus within only ten minutes of her dive and it had been curious enough about her that it had let her approach it.

Its body was about four feet in length with tentacles that were about twice as long. It seemed preoccupied with trying to touch all her equipment and when one of its arms brushed over the right hip bag it gave Carly an excellent idea. Her original plan for distracting and diverting attention away from her as she approached the Decepticon base had been to detonate the explosive about half a mile away from the base and to get closer when it was investigated. Instead, she tagged the octopus with one of the small hologram projectors and increased the magnitude to the highest possible setting and then released one of her oxygen tanks with a quick slice with one of her laser cutters for the octopus to chase like an overly excited puppy as she made herself scarce. The hologram projector would now make the octopus look absolutely gigantic to anything that was within range of seeing the octopus.

As she continued forward she adjusted her headset to higher hypersonic levels and tried to make any kind of sense of the literal alien sounds going back and forth over the channel she was finally able to find. In hindsight even when she realized yesterday that the Cybertronians could communicate with each other without outwardly vocalizing it, she should've realized that even if she found one of their communication channels they wouldn't be speaking English.

Though it was dark underwater, especially since it was still long before sunrise, she was still able to easily see the Decepticon base. Even if she didn't have her energon radar the many bright lights that were switched on externally would have made an obvious beacon in the dark.

A near-constant stream of Decepticons was exiting the base out from some underwater access ports on the sides of the base. She had attached one of her portable hologram projectors to herself when she had tagged the octopus with one only her own projector was simply programmed to make herself and the water around herself look like a swirling water current. In between the exiting Decepticons she swam into the base, making sure not to make any moves once she was inside until a full five minutes passed without anyone else exiting the base and carefully made her way inside.

TIME: 0410 HOURS

Scavenger hated it when the base was at Vos Level while expecting a human attack or attempted invasion. He always ended up being assigned inside the sensor array communications room far inside the base with no one else for company. The rest of his team were similarly scattered to different areas - Hook always seemed to get assigned to the repair bay even though he constantly groused that he wasn't a medic but an engineer. Scrapper and Mixmaster would be just outside the base to keep an optic out for any structural damage in order for quick repair jobs to be done. Long Haul and Bonecrusher at least would have a good time since they were always on the battle standby team.

He once had asked Scrapper what the point of separation was when they were at Vos Level and Scrapper simply said that if there was ever a point when Megatron wanted Devastator inside or just outside the Nemesis in battle mode they might as well just demolish the entire base instead of defending it.

If Scavenger had known that being able to detect human energy signatures would've landed him at such a boring battle station he would've kept it to himself. He was the only Decepticon on Earth who could read or sense the energy signals that came from humans and their creations when they used their abilities.

This was mainly because Scavenger's shovel had so many sensors and was so finely tuned for him to locate any material or energy source necessary for the Constructicon's building projects. It was probably the most sensitive array of any other Decepticon's possibly even surpassing any of the Autobot's own as well. So much so that he could actually pick up on the energy signals released by humans when they controlled natural forces in significant unnatural ways.

This is why he was very tempted to call Starscream and let him know that the apparent human attack they were holding off hadn't actually started yet. The giant octopus outside hadn't been created by our manipulated by a human. In fact, there had been no human energy signals released within five nautical miles of the Nemesis for nearly the entire night cycle.

On the other servo, it would give Starscream what he deserved for not consulting him in the first place. Just because Scavenger wasn’t an officer didn’t make him one to ignore. He’d let everyone fight the giant octopus for a few breems and then he could message Starscream on the open channel - that would make Starscream pay attention to others for once.

He stretched his arms to keep his joints loose and vented out loud with a whoosh before saying. “Oh well, I'm sure there won't be any emergencies anyway while they're all out.”

Sirens began to wail somewhere nearby a nanoclick later.

Scavenger had heard this particular alarm before whenever any sea creature happened to wander into the base when the underwater port was opened like they were at this time. Whoever was on pest control duty would be altered and then they would take care of the minor invasion after Vos Level was dropped down to Kaon Level.

TIME: 0445 HOURS

Ratbat patrolled the corridor outside the Command Center bored out of his processors. Once again he had the insultingly simple job of patrolling inside the Nemesis, even though there was an important battle going on outside. Maybe he could catch and dispatch whatever sea creature had gotten into the base while the ports had been open. He hoped it was one of the shelled reptiles instead of one of the squishy sea spiders since they were easier to catch.

The following sequence of events occurred just as so for Ratbat. First, he found the organic creature just as it was entering the Command Center corridor and instead of a sea creature it was a human. Second, Ratbat hesitated for just a few nanoclicks, unsure if the human would immediately attack him. Third, the human pointed a nozzle at him and said "Sorry about this, I can't let you stop me when I'm this close. This won't hurt at all but is going to be messy." And finally, the human squeezed the nozzle causing something blue and slimy looking to shoot out at Ratbat in a high-pressure stream, coating him completely in it. This was the equivalent of using a fire hose to coat a human in prop horror movie blood unexpectedly -shocking, confusing and, as the human had warned, extremely messy. It didn't fizzle or hum with energy like internal energon was supposed to, but it was nearly the exact same color and that was enough of a shock to keep him from stopping the human from going into the Command Center.

He fluttered into the room just as the human moved to stand before Megatron, head held high and its shoulders squared up as it said, "Megatron. I made it in here as you challenged. Will you consider my request to become allies?"

Ratbat could read the rage in Megatron's energy field even though his facial expression was completely calm looking. Someone was going to be punished for letting the human get so far into the base.

Megatron glared at the human and said, "Very well. You've proven your skill with overcoming great obstacles so I will indeed consider becoming allies with you. Starscream!"

"Megatron! I'm in the middle of battling the monster the human-created. Every attack just passes through it without damaging it, can't this wait for a breem?" Starscream's voice replied, filling the Command Center. 

Megatron sharply smiled and in English said, "Starscream, don't be rude. I have an esteemed guest here in the Command Center who doesn't speak Basic Cybertronian."

There were a few nanoclicks of silence when Starscream said in English, "The human is standing in the Command Center isn't it?"

"Take an educated guess."

TIME: 0530 HOURS

Megatron had sent the human along with Rumble and Frenzy as escorts to lead her to the Mess Hall for her 'initiation' while he had all the other Decepticons gather in the Command Center first for a debriefing.

"Starscream - I gave over this entire operation to repel the human away from the base and you failed so spectacularly that I'd be less embarrassed if the human had decided to simply blow up the entire Nemesis!" Megatron raged at his Second in Command.

"It's not my fault, Megatron! _ Scavenger _ was the one who was supposed to be monitoring any human activity heading into our territory and he didn't report her movements to me!" Starscream refuted, trying to pin the blame for the failed operation on someone else. "His failure meant the failure of the entire operation!"

"Hey!" Scavenger protested with an abrupt shout. "The human didn't give off any power signals when it was infiltrating the base and it still isn't or I would've reported it right away!"

Megatron gave a cold glare towards Scavenger, who flinched under his scrutiny, and said, "Are you trying to tell me that the human got through our human-adapted Vos Level security measures and didn't even use its powers the entire time it was doing so?"

Scavenger seemed to pull further into himself and before he could say anything else Scrapper spoke up and said, "He isn't trying to say anything like that, Megatron. Maybe the human's power is just so strong that not even Scavenger's sensors could get a read on it."

"Regardless of anyone else's failures during the operation, I warned you at the start of all this of what the punishment for your failure would be, Starscream. Everyone is to be in the Mess Hall in two breems to witness your well-deserved punishment." Megatron said before he left the room.

TIME: 0600 HOURS

Megatron had gathered all the Decepticons into the Mess Hall. Carly stood beside him on his left and the only significant movements she could see from where she stood were between the cassette Decepticons who were trying to keep Ratbat from slurping up the fake energon into himself while his boss, Soundwave apparently, stoically cleaned him off with a terry cloth towel. From her short conversation with Rumble and Frenzy be she learned Soundwave would also require him to have a solvent bath before he would be permitted to return to his internal docking station. Soundwave didn't mind dust too much but drew a hard line at not allowing sticky alien substances to be inside himself.

"Decepticons we have a rare opportunity given to us that the Autobots have scorned. This human has skills greater than any other of her kind simply for the fact that she got past every single one of you. We're going to have a little test. Starscream is going to guess what kind of human this one is, and once he has it correct she will give a demonstration of her skills using him as her volunteer subject. Human. Do you have anything to say before we begin your initiation as our new ally?" Megatron said gesturing between Starscream and herself.

"Just one thing," Carly said with only a hint of hesitation. "I don't have any magic."

There was a beat of complete silence. Starscream couldn't decide if he should be relieved or embarrassed.

"How did you get past the patrols so easily?" Starscream demanded.

Carly lifted her arm to show off her radar. "Energon radar. I just timed it out so I could get through during times when no one was around."

Megatron narrowed his optics at her and said. "The giant sea creature?"

"A hologram projector attached to a regular-sized octopus made it look bigger," Carly admitted. "I'm an inventor and made a few things. I synthesized my own energon to use as a power source but my grant isn't guaranteed to me unless it can be proven to be used as a power source. That's why I needed to become your ally, in exchange for me to be able to use Cybertronian technology until I start making my own tech that can use it I'll make all the energon you want."

There was another beat of silence before Megatron said, "A human got in here and it isn't even a _dangerous_ one I'm leaving this to you - if there is one of you wants to have a pet this is your one and only chance."

Megatron swept out from the room, not sure if he should be enraged or impressed. If none of his Decepticons on Earth wanted the human he would send her to Shockwave and would keep to the letter of their beginning alliance even if not the spark of it.

None of the remaining Decepticons said anything at first and then they were all arguing over not wanting to be the one who had to take care of a human without any powers - what use could it be?

Carly struggled not to show her anxiety. If she got rejected by the Decepticons for not having magic she would have nowhere else to go and would have no other options.

Finally, a voice cut through everyone's bickering and said, “I’ll take it.”

Carly couldn't stop herself from smiling.

... Finds a Way In


	4. It Only Takes One...

It Only Takes One...

Carly was hardly able to believe it. Even with Megatron granting permission, she had been starting to feel as though no one would take a chance on her. Yes, it was a little bit demeaning that she would be considered a pet, but these were Decepticons and she had honestly been expecting to be treated much worse than she had been so far. One of the bright green and purple colored Decepticons had been the one to raise his hand. He looked like he could turn into some type of excavator, based on the bucket shovel that was attached to him like a long tail.

Starscream scoffed rudely at him and said, “What use could you have with a human without any powers?”

The excavator-con sounded less confidant and more bashful as he admitted, “This one won’t hurt me if I pick it up.”

“Well, at least it’ll have to live with the Constructicons instead of here with us on the Nemesis all the time.” The blue jet-Decepticon optimistically pointed out - at which point there were no further complaints or concerns from the other Decepticons. They left the Mess Hall en masse, leaving only the six green and purple Decepticons behind.

Carly walked over to where the excavator Decepticon was standing a little separated from the other five, all of who gave her the impression that they were irritated at their companion. It wouldn’t hurt to be polite to the one who took a chance on her. “Thank you for letting me work with you. My name’s Carly, what’s yours?”

“My designation is Scavenger. You really don’t have one of those powers humans have? No fire? No electricity? Nothing? Why not?” Scavenger didn’t try to pick her up yet but Carly was close enough to see the lenses in his eyes twist like a zoom lens on a camera adjusting itself in order to presumably get a closer look at her. He didn’t have a mouth but instead had a square faceplate so she couldn’t see if he was smiling, frowning, or something else.

“Genetic anomalies like my own show up in organic species in different ways. Around 3 to 7% of all humans don’t have any powers at all.” Carly explained plainly to him.

Scavenger, satisfied with her explanation, though still not completely certain she wouldn’t try to burn or electrocute him, reached his hands down, palms up, and laid them next to Carly. “Hop on up then. I’ll take you to our workshop here on the Nemesis so you can show me your work before I bring you offsite.”

Carly wasn’t able to hear the other five Constructicons giving Scavenger a collective enraged-coded silent treatment through their gestalt link for taking on the human without checking in with them first for their agreement. It was almost enough peer pressure to tempt Scavenger into trying to crush the human between his hands in order to receive their approval again.

Carly sighed in relief and as she stepped up onto Scavenger’s hands, she sealed her fate by saying, “You’re my favorite person in the universe right now, Scavenger. Thank you.”

“Oh really?” Scavenger asked, completely startled. He’d never been anyone’s favorite ANYTHING as long as he’d been alive. He definitely wouldn’t crush her now - even if she was only a human. He carefully cupped his hands for Carly to steady herself as he walked and made his way over to the somewhat mismatched workshop that he shared with his gestalt and sat her down on his (cluttered) worktable in the workshop.

As the other green and purple Decepticons followed him into the workshop Scavenger introduced them as they entered the room. “Me and my team are called the Constructicons - we build pretty much everything the rest of the Decepticons use. There’s Scrapper, Hook, Bonecrusher, Mixmaster, and Long Haul aside from myself.”

Carly had found herself surrounded by a mishmash of materials, ores, wires, and other objects and looked up at Scavenger. “You said you figured out how to make energon on your own, right? Show me what kind of energon you can make.”

“Do you have an electric generator? I don’t think you’d have a solar one here underwater.” Carly asked as she looked at the items around her with curiosity. Scavenger looked over at the generator the Constructicons shared and shuttered his optics in surprise when Scrapper and Hook moved in front of it, with their arms crossed as they stared him down together. 

'Let the human get its servos all over_ your _junk. It's not allowed to touch our collective equipment.' Scrapper firmly instructed Scavenger through their gestalt link.

“You can build one yourself, right?” Scavenger asked and motioned towards his collection of stuff.

“Well yes, as long as you have some strong magnets, copper wire, and some metal dowels I can use in order to build one,” Carly said, to which Scavenger searched his collection for the items she requested. While a half-hour passed by Scavenger watched and tried not to croon over how adorable it was that she was able to build the simple electric generator on her own. The other Constructicons, upon seeing Scavenger was being unusually stubborn about his impulsive decision, decided to leave the two to themselves. They collectively figured that Scavenger would lose interest in his new pet before too long like what usually happened with his new hobbies.

His mentality changed from amusement to amazement though when Carly carefully attached the electric generator to her small energon distiller/converter, pressed a few buttons, and flicked on a switch allowing holographic colored energon to pour out into a cylindrical shape reminiscent of a round energon cube. Carly then switched the machine off when she had around a fourth of an astrolitre and inspected the glass full of energon for a few seconds before sliding it closer to Scavenger’s direction for him to inspect.

Scavenger reached out carefully with his index finger and very gently touched the small cylinder - it was only half the size of his forefinger. He hovered his shovel just above it and checked the sensors. It really was electric high grade, with a 3% charge. Not a particularly strong current but it was impressive enough that a human had figured out on its own how to make food-grade energon in the first place. Most aliens that figured out how to make energon only made the purple fuel-grade kind.

Electric energon was actually Scrapper's favorite so Scavenger added the energon into his subspace in order to hand over to Scrapper a little later to earn back a little approval from him. His optics then focused back over to Carly and he said. "My favorite energon is actually the geothermal kind. Want to make a geothermal generator with me at our volcano base later?"

Carly smiled at him and said, "Sure, that sounds fun. By the way...is there any way I can make a call? I need to let my grandpa know I'm still alive."

"What's a grandpa? Is that your boss?" Scavenger asked slightly suspiciously.

Carly tried not to laugh and reminded calmly explained. "No, humans and pretty much every animal on this planet reproduces sexually. So every human on Earth has two biological parents and four biological grandparents and my ancestors double up back every generation. Grandpa is my biological mother's biological father."

"Why do you need to speak with 'Grandpa' when you're a working adult? Don't biological creatures leave their families when they are aged up enough?" Scavenger asked, still questioning her motives.

Carly blushed and said, "Well yes, but Grandpa's actually still my legal guardian since I've only turned seventeen. Even if he wasn’t I know he'd be worried if I suddenly dropped contact with him."

"Hold on a click are you saying you're _ apprentice _ aged right now?" Scavenger suddenly sat up ramrod straight, sounding very interested and alert.

"What does that mean?" Carly asked.

"You aren't a sparkling anymore but aren't a fully forged adult quite yet. Apprentice or youngling are somewhat interchangeable Cybertronian terms but an apprentice is still undergoing their education. What's the organic equivalent again?" Scavenger explained and stopped to think for a moment before speaking again. "Adolescent. Yes, that's what I mean. Are you an adolescent human?"

"Yes, I am," Carly answered and let out an abrupt yelp of surprise when Scavenger scooped her up into his hands unexpectedly and rushed out of the room so fast his feet nearly screeched against the floor.

Carly had no idea where Scavenger was taking her and when he nearly broke the door down to get into the repair bay she was a bit winded and dizzy from the trip and so nearly missed it that this was where the other green and purple Constructicons had gathered. She didn't miss it though when one of the other Constructicons began to yell at Scavenger in irritation.

“Scavenger! This is a sterile environment! Get your new pet out of here!”

“But Hook listen to this, Carly's an_ adolescent _human! She’s really smart and useful too, so I was thinking since Gravedigger's still in stasis she could be our apprentice!" 

Carly hadn't been expecting that. Neither had the other Constructicons.

"Are you completely glitched in your processor Scavenger!? That's a terrible idea!" Long Haul retorted.

"How dare you try to replace my brother with a_ human! _" Bonecrusher snarled, looking ready to begin smashing his fist into Scavenger's face.

"No, not to replace him - we can use her to practice teaching until we have enough energon to revive him." Scavenger said, revealing the motivation behind his newest idea, hoping the other Constructicons would approve of it.

Scrapper vented deeply before he said, "Scavenger. You can do whatever you want with the human, just leave the rest of us out of it. Come on, we're going to converge together at the dry high altitude base 100 kliks inland. Since you're here we might as well get going."

Scavenger slumped in disappointment and said, "I thought we were going back to the volcano base this cycle. I really wanted to have geothermal energon again."

"I doubt the volcano base is _ pet safe _ yet but if you want us to go there anyway I don't want to hear a single complaint when it melts." Scrapper snapped at him, causing both Scavenger and Carly to pause.

Scavenger peered closer at Carly for a nanoclick and without any further sign of disappointment said. "The dry high altitude base sounds great."

LATER

ON A HIGHWAY EASTBOUND TOWARDS BEND, OREGON

Human transportation tended to be unusual in one way or another. Nearly 90% of human transportation ran on magical energy for power. There were water-powered vehicles that left trails of water behind on their trips. There were electric-powered vehicles that hummed with an ever-building charge as they went along. There were metal and stone vehicles that scraped across the roads on treads like tanks. There were vehicles that had sails that used air to move. There were wooden vehicles that moved like skittering spiders, aether vehicles that left comet trails in their wake, and of course, furnace-like combustive vehicles that burned up the roads -sometimes literally.

Fortunately for Carly and others like her, the one and only Henry Ford had been a fire type who wanted his combustion engine vehicles to be able to be used by anyone, no matter what their magic type or magical volume was. This allowed her to drive her own vehicle even without having any magic.

While the other Constructicons traveled ahead by using their anti-gravity thrusters, Scavenger escorted Carly from ground level. Scavenger at first hadn't wanted Carly to drive her car from where she had parked near the beach over to the Constructicon's base outside the small city of Bend. Once Carly showed off her high-frequency headphones though and about an hour of rewiring her car's radio system in order to allow Scavenger to talk with her, even when they were separated on the road, he didn't mind traveling separately. 

Carly listened and tried not to laugh as she listened to Scavenger's running commentary on how terrible Earth roads and human-designed vehicles were. He also seemed to enjoy pointing out where large deposits of important minerals were located saying that he'd be able to easily mine them out no matter how deep they ran and even where his sensors indicated where magma was located close to the surface as they traveled.

You would think that a bright green and purple excavator would be very conspicuous looking but Scavenger's paint job didn't even merit a first glance, let alone a second one, from most people. When the Constructicons traveled as a unit they were possibly even less attention-grabbing since most people assumed they were part of the same construction company. (To be fair, this was technically true about the Constructicons.)

Carly had been staying at motels while she had been working on finding the Decepticons and had originally been planning on having her Grandpa cosign an apartment lease with her to live in once she had made arrangements to work with the Decepticons. Somehow Scavenger had been able to convince her just to stay at another motel until he had a human habitat properly built over at the high altitude dry base for her to stay in. He actually wanted her to live at the base! She wouldn't have ever managed that with the Autobots!

5 MILES OUTSIDE BEND, OREGON

AT A SLIGHTLY RUNDOWN MOTEL 

Later in a motel just outside of Bend, Carly had just entered the room when the sound of a loud screeching noise sounded outside. Carly looked out the window just in time to see Scavenger pick up the back end of a large sailed wind vehicle that had been pulled up next to her convertible with his shovel and drag it across the parking lot and into the street before he moved to park in the now empty spot next to her car. 

The bucket wriggled a bit in what Carly assumed was meant to be his version of waving hello as he spoke hypersonically, allowing her to hear him through her headphones. "I'll wait here for you Carly until you finish talking to Grandpa."

There wasn't anything she could think of to say about his actions and so sequestered herself away in order to call up her Grandpa and let him know about her new circumstances.

"Did your plan work out as you wanted it to?" Her Grandpa asked, as interested and invested as ever about Carly's life.

"Not exactly, but I get to work with one of the Decepticons from their engineering department. His name is Scavenger and he can transform into an excavator." Carly said. 

"I knew at least_ one _of those extraterrestrials had to be an intelligent fellow. Scavenger from the Decepticon Engineering team, you say? I'll remember that. Keep in touch, Carly. I'll set up a p.o. box for you in Bend so I can have your mail forwarded to you." He said and the two gave their farewells to each other.

It was still early enough that Carly could call the MIT Grant office and so went through the usual 30 minutes of runaround in order to connect with who she needed to speak with.

"You actually got a partnership with one of the aliens?" The grant director, Garrison Blackrock, asked sounding astonished.

"Yes, I'll really have access to their technology in order to test my energon formulas with. This qualifies me to receive the research grant, right?" Carly asked.

Mr. Blackrock hummed in consideration before he admitted, "While it is indeed impressive that you have accomplished this feat I'm unable to grant you the grant just because our alien neighbors are able to make use of what you've created. I'll tell you what, you build something impressive that can use this energon and present it to the grant board on the last week of November. This grant is very competitive and I want to be certain that whoever we grant it too deserves it entirely. Good luck on your prototype and I'll see you then Miss Park. Have a good day."

Carly was just able to keep herself from groaning out loud in dismay. She might as well have been trying to join the circus with all the hoops she was having to jump tonight in order to get that grant. Hopefully spending her time with Scavenger at the Constructicon's base would expose her to enough of their tech to get inspiration for her to build something_ impressive_ like had been requested from her.

...To Start A Change


	5. Building An Alliance…

Building An Alliance…

When Carly was finally moving into the base Scrapper met with herself and Scavenger at the entrance, causing both of them to halt momentarily.

"Scavenger. Your new pet is your responsibility now. You will keep it fed, clean up any mess it makes, and make sure it stays out of everyone's quarters."

"You can count on me, Scrapper." Scavenger confirmed, seemingly happy to agree to his terms.

Then Scrapper turned his attention to Carly and said, "Carly is your designation, correct? You're technically part of this unit now, and there are standards that you need to comply with. First, you will be responsible for getting your colors to match up with this unit's uniform as soon as possible: any combination of black, deep purple and safety green is fine. Also before you're allowed to freely wander the base on your own outside of your quarters, you will be required to wear human construction safety equipment with safety optics and helm protection worn at a minimum. Do you understand?"

It was difficult for Carly to decide if Scrapper was doing this on Scavenger's behalf so he wouldn't be worried about her when she wasn't around him, or if he was doing it on behalf of the other Constructicons by not giving Carly any obvious or not so obvious favoritism for Scavenger's actions in bringing her into their midst without any warning. It was probably both.

"Yes. I'll need to go shopping later for some new clothes then." Carly replied understanding but not exactly enthusiastic. She preferred wearing blue. Safety green, black, and deep purple together in one outfit? Anyone who looked at her was going to think she was leading an aerobics class.

Scrapper gave a short nod, indicating he heard her response and said, "Welcome to the Constructicon Drafting Base. When we aren't on the Nemesis performing our duties there it's here where everyone on the crew collects their materials, works on their personal projects, and builds miniature prototypes before we work on our projects on location. As a last bit of advice while you're living here among us: don't disturb Hook when he's working on blueprints, Mixmaster when he's in his lab with the door shut, Long Haul when he's moping about being bored, or Bonecrusher when he's building explosives and you'll last a lot longer then I expect you to."

Following that the base was now open to her. Carly made a quick trip back into town and was, fortunately, able to find a shop that sold safety equipment for loggers and construction workers. There she bought green safety glasses and a white hard hat. Another separate regular clothing store is where she found and stocked up on her new apparent 'uniform'. Green, black and purple shirts, with both long and short sleeves, black and purple leggings, black jeans, (plus safety green and purple leg warmers), a few pairs of blue jeans that she planned to dye black and purple at a later time, a purple and black windbreaker for the autumn and a safety green and purple coat for the winter.

The first thing Carly did once she settled in to live in the Constructicon Drafting Base was to upgrade her energon distiller in order for it to be able to convert virtually any energy source into energon. With some help from Scavenger, she then collected half an astrolitre each of purple fuel-grade, pink military-grade, and blue living-grade energon for her to experiment with.

Scavenger loved watching Carly as she worked - she learned things so quickly! It impressed him how quickly she was able to figure things out and how fast she worked! It only took her a few cycles to recreate both the fuel grade and military-grade energon with her distiller. The closest she got to living energon, however, was high grade with a bluish-greenish holographic sheen instead of the warmer holographic colors it usually came in such as white, orange, yellow and red. It was Hook who finally revealed what Carly was missing to create living energon.

Carly had been sitting in the small Constructicon Break Room, eating a sandwich with chips and water for her lunch, while Scavenger fueled up with a third of his daily ration (spiked with 10% of an astrolitre of solar high grade for a little extra flavor) and had said, "I figured out that it's the number of times energon is filtered during the distillation process that determines what type it becomes. More than 50 but less than 100 times will get fuel grade, 100 to 500 times will get military-grade and anything above 500 will get high grade. I filtered the teal holographic stuff 5000 times and it's nowhere near the right shade of blue. I'll try for 10,000 times next to see if that'll make it work."

"Don't bother. You need an internal energon filter in order to get living energon." Hook said as he dispensed out an astrolitre of military-grade energon from the counter energon dispenser but otherwise didn't acknowledge either Scavenger or Carly's presence.

Carly excitedly turned towards Hook and asked, "What's an internal energon filter?"

Hook's optics zoomed into and then out of focus, in the Cybertronian equivalent of a blink of surprise, before in a very condescending tone said, "Oh? Is there something about energon the little human couldn't figure out on her own? Why should I waste my highly valuable time explaining such simple concepts to someone so primitive?"

Carly smiled in response and said, "Well if you know you can't explain a simple concept, I'll ask someone who can. Scavenger, do you know what an internal energon filter is?"

Scavenger froze as Carly physically turned herself to face him again and ignored Hook completely. Hook’s expression was halfway between baffled and angry. On one servo, Hook loved to show off how intelligent and creative he was, but only after his ego was fed a little bit first. On the other servo, Scavenger did know what an internal energon converter was, and Carly really valued the things he explained to her.

"Yes. I do know what it is, it's a component inside the frame of a Cybertronian. I don't know what it does aside from having something to do with the energon we eat." Scavenger admitted.

Hook glared at the pair and interjected, "That explanation was terrible Scavenger. An internal energon converter is attached to a Cybertronian's fuel tank and it converts the energon we eat into living energon in order to keep us functional. Don't ask me how it works though, I'm an engineer - not a systems doctor."

Carly tried not to be discouraged but sighed in disappointment anyway. "So it's a Cybertronian organ? Like human intestines or the liver? It would be really grody of me to want one then, wouldn't it."

"Next time I fight an Autobot I'll try to pull one out just for you, Carly." Scavenger promised even as he pet her on the top of her hard hat in affection with an audible thud. Carly vaguely wondered if the Autobots ever did the same thing to their human allies. At least the hat kept her from being accidentally concussed.

Hook haughtily vented at the affectionate display and left the room with his energon in his servo, planning on returning to his drafting board to design the transformation lock Megatron would likely soon be required from them according to Scrapper's notes from the last meeting he had with Megatron.

Scavenger and Carly spent the rest of the afternoon and evening building and setting up a geothermal tap into a deep magma deposit a klik away from the base so Carly could make some geothermal energon for Scavenger. When he finally got a taste of it he remarked that the flavor was warm and energetic with a smooth aftertaste of carbon.

When they returned to the base Long Haul was waiting for them in just inside the entrance.

“It’s about time you came back, Scavenger. You turned your com off again, didn't you? Mixmaster got permission from Scrapper to go look for his methane mine again and needs you and me to go with him out to survey that one area about 10 kliks from here that he swears has a methane deposit buried somewhere. It’s the same spot we’ve already been to ten times.”

Scavenger was still in a good mood from the success from the geothermal tap and so optimistically he said, “Well my sensors have indicated that there is a higher amount of methane particles in the atmosphere in that area, so he's probably right. We just haven’t had any luck finding the source.”

Long Haul huffed in irritation and muttered, “I doubt looking an eleventh time is gonna change a thing.”

“Why are you looking for a methane deposit?” Carly asked from where she stood at Scavenger’s right and Long Haul finally looked down, finally acknowledging her presence.

“Because Starscream is very strict about how much anyone can get out of the methane pump we built 5 kliks from the Nemesis, and Mixmaster needs to find an additional source to continue his chemistry experiments. Are you planning to make yourself useful finally and come with us to work instead of playing around with Scavenger all cycle?”

Carly put her hands on her hips and as she glared sternly up at him said, “Hey! We weren’t exactly having a picnic in the woods, you know. We were setting up a geothermal energy collector.”

“Well, that was something you two had a good time doing. It wasn’t real work.” Long Haul stubbornly argued.

Carly was silent for a few seconds before she asked, “Are you saying that you think if you’re having fun you aren’t really working?”

“That explains so much about you, Hauler.” Scavenger said, sounding like he had received enlightenment to one of the universe's greatest mysteries.

Long Haul punched Scavenger across his helm with a clang and said, “Don’t call me that! Do I look like an Autobot to you, you half clocked .”

Carly didn’t understand the last word Long Haul said since he didn’t bother translating it from the Cybertronian language but from the way that Scavenger took a step back in surprise she had a pretty good feeling that it was probably a curse word of some kind.

Scavenger confirmed it when he said, “Hey, don’t use that kind of language in front of Carly, it’s very rude.”

“.” Long Haul said again defiantly before continuing, “Don’t try to order me around. Let’s go, Mixmaster’s waiting in the Mess Hall.”

Without bothering to check to see if Scavenger was following him he then turned and intentionally walked with his feet clanging hard against the floor at an aggressive pace.

Scavenger looked down at Carly and asked, "Do you want to come with us to look for methane?"

Carly had only been planning to go to sleep, but watching how aliens did geological surveying might be interesting to watch. Making up her mind decisively she nodded in agreement and said, "Yeah, I'll come along. Just let me grab a new filter for my gas mask though, methane in large amounts can make humans sick after all. What do you expect from the trip?"

"Well Scrapper only approves these kinds of things during the night cycle since we'll be close to a human settlement and he doesn't want unnecessary problems with the local humans trying to bother us. If we find the source of the methane early enough I'll mine it out and Long Haul will help us carry it all back here. You probably won't need to do anything except help Long Haul keep an eye out for humans while Mixmaster and I sweep the area to look for where the methane is coming from the ground." Scavenger answered as he lowered his hands in a wordless offer to carry Carly, which she accepted.

Mixmaster admittedly was a little...odd even for a cybernetic alien. She had watched him work the second night cycle she had been staying at the base when the doors to his laboratory were wide open. He didn't seem to have any scientific method while he worked on some chemical mixture on the table in his lab. It looked more like he had been mixing up a magic potion.

He even had a cauldron.

His nickname for her instead of using her name was 'walking organic chemical weirdo.'

She had tried not to be offended. It helped that Scavenger admitted to her later that even before they were in stasis for four million years Mixmaster's processor's 'ran triple clocked and sideways' to how most Cybertronians thought.

Mixmaster didn't seem to mind that Carly was tagging along with them and instead was talking about all the things he planned to do once he had a regular source of methane. He spoke rather ordinarily at first but as he became more excited his speech impediment that was similar to a human stutter became more pronounced. Carly took it as a good sign that he was so excitable about the short mission, even though she had come along without any prior warning.

Mixmaster lead the way for nearly 20 miles away from the base until they came across a flat area just west of where the mountains became hills and fields instead. Carly could see hundreds of dark shapes dotted about for as far as she could see and heard low rumbling calls back and forth amongst the animals. It was a field full of cows. Was this a strange Constructicon prank of some kind?

Scavenger placed Carly on the ground and made sure that her gas mask was secured over her nose and mouth before saying, "Mixmaster and I are going to start making sweeps over this area in order to find where the methane is coming out from the ground."

Carly narrowed her eyes at him, Scavenger had been refreshingly open with her so she didn't think he was joking. Very carefully she asked, "You say there's a higher amount of methane in the air around here than normal, right?"

Scavenger nodded his head and made a sweeping gesture with his arm to indicate the area while his shovel 'tail' seemed to perk up as his sensors picked up in the atmospheric composition. "That's right methane on this planet usually makes up only 0.000187% of the atmosphere but here it occurs at 0.000524% instead. If we can find the source then we'll have our own separate mine for the Drafting Base, which will make Mixmaster happy and since he wouldn't be pestering Scrapper into negotiating with Starscream in order to allow for a higher amount to be taken from the Nemesis' mine and that'll put Scrapper in a better mood as well. All in all, good news for everyone if this works out."

Long Haul vented loudly in annoyance and said, "Just keep a lookout in the eastern direction and alert us if you see anything unusual while Scavenger and Mixmaster go looking. You probably won't sense anything before I do but two people keeping a lookout is better than one, even if you are a human."

Mixmaster was practically walking with a spring in his step as he began to walk further into the field and said, "Soon-soon I'll find the source! I can fee-feel it down to my innermost cir-circuits!"

"It's coming from the cows."

All three Cybertronians turned to stare at Carly in varying amounts of shock. Carly stared back at them calmly and said. "The high amounts of methane I mean. It's coming from the cows - not from somewhere underground."

Mixmaster was the first to respond after a short amount of silence. "Th-that can't be! Methane is well doc-doc-documented by Cybertronians to be a geological byproduct that comes from me-metamorphic rocks shifting."

Carly shrugged and said, "I'm not a biologist but I do know that on earth methane comes from organic sources - bogs and swamps release methane and so do termites, humans and especially cows. I once read that cows emit a fifth of all methane in the atmosphere."

"Carly, are you actually saying that on earth methane AND oil come from primarily organic sources? Not geological ones like 90% of the planets in the known universe?" Scavenger asked, sounding astonished as Mixmaster seemed to be frozen in thought.

Carly nodded and said, "Well earth IS an organic planet, isn't it?"

“.” Long Haul muttered. "What a waste of time. It's not like we can mine these cows."

"I'm taking one-one-one of these cows. Help me carry it Long Haul." Mixmaster said making a grabbing motion towards the cow sleeping closest to him.

"No way." Long Haul refused. "There's already ONE pet at the Drafting Base and we don't need another."

Mixmaster allowed himself to be convinced by Long Haul though he whined, "A methane making organic creature would be so much more use-useful as a pet-pet-pet. May-may-maybe I can convince Scrapper to trade-trade-trade in the walking organic chemical weirdo for one of these cows instead."

Carly interjected and said, "If it hadn't been for me telling you about the cows you wouldn't even know you wanted one now. You can at least appreciate that you didn't have to waste a night looking for methane coming out from the ground when it was coming from somewhere else."

Scavenger nodded and backed her up by saying, "Carly's right. We're too used to thinking in Cybetronian norms and this IS an alien planet. You have to admit having a native around is at least a little helpful. It's probably why the Autobots keep their humans around. Aside from their weird energy powers that is."

Mixmaster pouted a bit but finally nodded his helm and calmly said, "Fine. Thank you, Carly, for telling us that methane on this planet is made with organic chemistry instead of geologic chemistry."

Long Haul actually gave Carly an appreciative pat on her head, his servo thunking heavily onto the helmet. "You're right Scavenger. Good job, human. You're not a like I thought you were."

Scavenger vented in annoyance and said. "You really should watch your language, Long Haul. If she repeats what you say in front of Scrapper he'll add us to the active duty roster for probably a hundred cycles in order to teach us proper discipline again."

“.” Long Haul said again defiantly before continuing, “I told you not to order me around already. She probably can't speak Cybertronian anyway - she wouldn't get the hypersonic and subsonic sounds right."

"If we could get Hook to create a cassette sized vocal mod-mod-modulator for her. She-she-she could probably learn-learn to speak it." Mixmaster said, now back in an enthusiastic mood again.

"That would be amazing! But we aren't going to give Carly her first lesson as swearing - we should teach her scientific and social speaking first." Scavenger said before devolving into an argument with Long Haul on the merits of swearing versus not saying anything. Carly hid her amused smile as the three Constructicons argued as they returned to the base, glad that she was finally being included by other Constructicons within the unit. Now she just needed to make a better impression on Bonecrusher, Hook, and Scrapper.

  
  


...Takes Effort From Both Sides


	6. You Don't Have To Like Me...

You Don't Have To Like Me...

  
  


Once Carly moved in to live with the Constructicons she decided that every Monday and Friday morning she would leave the base to drive down to Bend and pick up new groceries and any mail that had come to her P.O. box. The Friday following her trip to the dairy farm with Scavenger, Mixmaster, and Long Haul was no different. When she came back to the base later that afternoon, though, she had to ask Scavenger to help her with carrying a large (for her) sized box into the base from her car.

Scavenger had built a room right inside his workshop for Carly to have her own space inside the base, which was actually a little bigger than the room from her Grandpa’s house. The only internal remodeling he had done, aside from adding floor to ceiling walls to allow Carly to have privacy, was to add a human-sized door from the outside corridor for Carly to be able to enter her quarters from the hall. He had also installed an intercom like doorbell since she didn't have any other way to be alerted if someone needed her attention. There was also a human-sized door between her quarters and his workshop in case Carly wanted to visit him without having to walk out into the corridor.

"Grandpa sent me a bunch of stuff from my room at his house. The computer I built, my boom box, my tape collection, a gallon of ultraviolet dye, my old soldering kit, my cold generator, and my collection of mineral samples." Carly explained to Scavenger as she unpacked the box inside his workshop to show him her things before bringing them into her quarters. Scavenger was always interested in seeing what Carly brought with her when she came back from Bend, whether it was about the food she purchased or the mail she received.

"Why do you have a mineral collection?" Scavenger asked as he leaned his shovel tail forward to scan over her collection. 80% of the collection seemed to be made up of variants of quartz, 10% was silica variants, 5% was carbon variants, 3% was silver 1% was copper, and 1% was gold.

Carly grinned up at him and said, "Because before all you giant Cybertronians decided to reveal yourselves to humanity I had been studying the differences between naturally occurring and magically created physical substances. All these minerals are naturally occurring samples. Unless preventative and preserving measures are taken I discovered that all magically created substances have a 90% chance of degrading completely within 10 cycles of being made."

"Well, that's good. At least if I ever get sealed into crystallized carbon, like what happened to that little punk Rumble, Hook won't have to cut it off my armor. What's a 'cold generator'? Does it just generate cold air?" Scavenger asked.

"This? No, this is the invention that got me an invitation to MIT even though I'm so young. It's a generator I invented that stays cold even while it's running. I own the patent and this is the latest prototype I built. I was wondering what kind of energon it would make. Want to be my taste tester once I whip up a batch?" Carly asked.

Scavenger's shovel drooped and he apologetically said, "I can't. I'm already powered up all the way and if I get overcharged while I'm scheduled to perform base maintenance like I am this upcoming cycle, Scrapper would have me recycled."

Carly thought for a moment and then asked, "Do you think anyone would mind if I start making samples to leave in the break room for anyone to take?"

Scavenger thought in silence for a moment before he said, "If there's room available in the energon storage container that should be fine. Just don't leave any of your energon cylinders on the countertops or the table since Scrapper doesn't like food to be left out. It attracts pests and Scrapper hates retrorats, turborats, glitchmice, and zapmice."

Carly's eyebrows raised in surprise and she said, "Not as if I plan to do it, but if I did leave energon out would pests from your planet even show up down here on Earth?"

"As soon as we rebuilt the space bridge, Scrapper gave a three-cycle long lesson on proper energon storage & packaging and hygiene protocols for living on a planet connected to a space bridge to the entire Nemesis crew. It's a possibility." Scavenger said, trying not to remember how spark-crushingly boring that particular meeting had been.

Carly pat Scavenger sympathetically, because she'd lived in the base for a few weeks she knew now that a cycle was anywhere from 10 to 14 hours long. A three-cycle long meeting was excruciatingly long in her point of view.

A little later Scavenger left the room to start his shift, planning on reinforcing both the roof and a few of the outer walls of the base. Carly set up her distiller and cold generator to begin testing her invention's energon output but was interrupted by the intercom like box next to the door that led out to the corridor chiming rhythmically. That meant someone wanted to see her - and considering Scavenger was now working his shift it meant it was another Constructicon who wanted to speak with her.

That was a surprise. The other Constructicons tended to completely ignore her presence, even Long Haul and Mixmaster seemed to still have an 'out of sight out of mind' policy when it came to her. Sure, they now greeted her and used her name when they crossed paths in the break room, corridors, and workshop but they didn't go out of their way to look for her.

Carly opened the door and instantly recognized Hook's legs even before she looked up to see his face. He didn't wear a mask as Scavenger did and she could already tell that he looked very stressed and tense. "I need you to make 100 astrolitres of electrical fuel-grade energon by the end of this cycle."

Carly thought about asking him to be more polite but she had enough sense to know what battles she should pick. "Will you let me use the high voltage generator Scavenger told me you have in your workshop?"

Hook scowled at her and said, "As long as you don't touch anything in there but the generator I will allow it."

"Cool, I'll grab a distiller and follow you there," Carly said before ducking back into her quarters to grab one of the four distillers she now had. She eyed the cold generator and distiller and decided to leave the distiller running to get as many filters as possible while she was off working.

Hook was already walking down the corridor by the time Carly had come out from her quarters and she rushed to catch up to him. They passed by Long Haul's workshop, the break room, and then Mixmaster's workshop before finally arriving at Hook's workshop. Although the job Hook wanted her to do was going to be what just amounted to busywork, she was finally going to see a room she'd never been in and be able to finally catch a glimpse of technology she had never seen before.

Hook opened the door to his workshop and Carly tried not to tear up from the emotions welling up inside her. All along the walls of the room was a panoramic diorama of an alien skyline. The buildings had rounded and curving lines and they all seemed to glow from somewhere deep within. There were anti-gravity suspension roads for travel that didn't need street lights because the roads themselves glowed with warm golden lights. Even without the panoramic picture, there was a division of prototypes of buildings, ships, weapons, and who knew what else in various stages of development all over the room. This room was overflowing with the promise of technology she hasn't even dreamed of yet.

Her eyes stung a bit and in awe, she said, "This is all totally incredible."

Hook seemed to puff up a bit and said, "Of course it is. Now don't spring a leak right now, you aren't here to bask in my greatness, you're here to work. The generator is over here."

The higher voltage electric generator was on a grounded spot of the room nearly opposite from where Hook’s drafting station was located. Hook pointed at the generator and said, “Make 200 half astrolitre containers of fuel-grade energon there. Keep working until the task is completed and do NOT interrupt me until you’ve finished the job. I need to start building a transformation lock prototype by next cycle so I’m in the final stages of perfecting its final design. I don’t have the time to oversee simple fuel energon production while concentrating on my task, so you’re going to be the one to do it.”

Hook left her to focus on his work and Carly began to set up her energon distiller. Instead of only filling half an astrolitre at a time she decided to increase the voltage of the electric generator and would set up the filters so they would have 100 rotations each. She could get fuel-grade energon with only 50 rotations, but 100 filtered fuel-grade would create energon that was more efficient and would leave less residue behind. It was just a shade of purple away from being military-grade pink.

As the cylinders of energon filled up ten at a time, Carly looked around Hook’s room as quietly as she could. Everything inside the room was totally amazing. Her attention eventually focused primarily on the Constructicon on the other side of the room that in an area was apparently set apart for drafting up projects. Hook’s attention was entirely focused on what looked like a set of three holographic chalkboards with clear surfaces that had writing in different glowing colors written around three-dimensional schematics and notes about the machine he was working on.

From what Carly could see from across the room, it looked like Hook was adjusting the internal components of the machine while watching in real-time how the resulting external shape of the machine was being affected. She could just barely spot where a line of purple that she presumed indicated an energon fuel line would enter a chamber and send out a jolt of a different sort of energy out as a beam of light.

It was fascinating and she quietly watched him work as she did her assignment for three hours, stacking the cylinders in pyramid shape like canned goods at a grocery store as she worked. It was soon close to being her self scheduled dinnertime and fortunately finished up the last batch of energon cylinders. Carly stood and allowed herself a full-bodied stretch and then began to walk towards Hook and his still active drafting.

“Hook? I finished up making the energon you needed.” Carly spoke up as she stood a few yards away from where he was standing.

“Very well. You can-” Hook stopped speaking abruptly as he turned to look at the 100 astrolitres of energon. His voice seemed to crackle with static and audio feedback for a few seconds before his expression changed from serious and focused to one of outright rage. “You primitive, idiotic organic! How could you ruin such a simple task? Get out of my sight before I lose all senses and decide to put you out of my misery!”

Carly ran out of Hook’s drafting workshop and didn’t look back. What exactly was it that she had ruined? Maybe the energon had been too close to being military-grade to his taste or he didn’t like how she had set the energon cylinders up as a pyramid shape? She wished Hook could’ve given her better feedback other than just saying she had messed up. One of these days she was going to slip and give a Decepticon a piece of her mind. When that eventually happened when all she could hope for was that her death would at least be quick.

Hook, once he had calmed down, went across the room and inspected the 100 astrolitres of energon with a critical eye. The way the human had designed her energon storage containers to be cylinders was still annoying to his sensibilities, but in volume, it was the exact amount he had requested for her to make. It was just extremely frustrating to him that he would have to redesign the entire machine he had been working on all because the human didn't understand a thing like the standard shape of a simple pit spawned fuel cell. A simple thing like that should be common knowledge.

Carly began to make her way over to the break room to start making herself something to eat. When she walked into the room, however, Bonecrusher was there next to the counter with the energon dispenser with a bored expression on his face as he methodically took apart a small device in one hand while he waited for his energon to finish pouring. Carly fought the urge to backtrack out of the room and walked over to where her dry goods and canned foods had been stored up. Out of all of the Constructicons, it was Bonecrusher who liked Carly the least and she had no idea why that was. Whenever he looked at her he was either scowling, sneering or glaring at her.

When he noticed Carly, finally, his expression switched from being neutrally bored to one of distaste, “Ugh - it's you. I think I’ll fuel up in my workshop while I finish up this remote explosive detonator before the sight of you makes my tanks back up.”

"You're not planning on testing that inside the base, are you?" Carly blurted out before she could stop herself, feeling one kind of survival instinct overriding another.

"So what if I am? My workshop is reinforced enough to take a direct fusion blast to the walls without a smudge." Bonecrusher argued as he began to walk out of the room at an unrushed pace. "My workshop is the only one that has active explosives in it, anyway."

"No it isn't - I left an Autobot fusion bomb in Scavenger's workshop when I moved into the base," Carly said, causing him to halt in his stride.

Bonecrusher's optic backlighting began to shine noticeably brighter as he stiffened into an aggressive stance and growled out, "I knew it! I knew you were already working for the Autobots! You've been planning to destroy our base and us right from the start, haven't you!"

"You don't seriously think I'm working with the Autobots, do you? Unless- is that the reason why you don't like me!?" Carly accused.

"No. I think you're an Autobot human agent because you brought an Autobot bomb into the base without telling anyone. I don't like you 'cause your creepy organic optics are blue!" Bonecrusher argued against Carly's accusations.

"Alright, first of all, Scavenger did know that I brought in a bomb because he inspected everything I brought with me when I moved in and he just told me to keep it in his workshop instead of my quarters. And secondly, I can't change the fact that my eyes are blue - it's in my genetics."

Bonecrusher lessened his aggressive stance and his optic lights dimmed to their standard intensity as he snarled, "That half clocked glitch-head. Scavenger knows everyone on the team needs to tell me if they have explosives laying around. Bring that explosive to my workshop before the end of the cycle so I can make sure that you or Scavenger won’t blow us all to components without warning. If you can't figure out the coding to change your optic color at least cover them up so I don't have to see them."

With that said Bonecrusher left the room without any further delay. He didn't immediately go back to his workshop, but instead aggressively marched himself outside the base and over to where Scavenger was reinforcing the outer walls near Mixmaster's lab.

As soon as he spotted Scavenger he bellowed, "Scavenger! What's my number one rule, you scatter minded moron!?"

"You're the demolition expert so if we find or build _ anything _ that could destroy the base you need to take a look at it first." Scavenger automatically answered before his processors caught up with his vocalizer. Feeling admittedly confused he asked, "Why are you checking to see if I remember your little rule?"

"Because apparently, you forgot it when you came out of stasis since you decided it was unnecessary to inform me that you've had an_ Autobot bomb _ in your workshop for the last 20 cycles!" Bonecrusher ended his angry rant by swinging his fist out and clanging it hard against the side of Scavenger's helm.

"Oops, sorry about that, Bonecrusher. I meant to tell you." Scavenger apologized, "I was just too excited to show Carly around my workshop and I forgot about it. She never works on it though, she'd been focused on developing different types of energon. Which reminds me, I still need to rip out an Autobot's internal energon converter to give one to her."

Bonecrusher clanged his fist across Scavenger's head one more time for good measure and said, "You've got the luck of a turborat in an energon mine. Fortunately for you, your creepy pet told me about the bomb before I started testing my remote detonator or your workshop would've been wrecked. Maybe I should do it anyway and give you a mess to clean up when you get off the maintenance cycle."

Bonecrusher toggled his detonator in a threatening manner and when nothing happened decided not to find it too bothersome. It just figured Scavenger's pet would have the same kind of luck he had.

"I'm going to my workshop. Don't forget rule one again or I'll just save you the trouble and demolish your workshop myself - with your creepy pet inside it too if you really torque me off." Bonecrusher aggressively turned and moved to go to his workshop, sincerely hoping the human would cover it's creepy optics like he asked. Blue was just too creepy.

When Bonecrusher left the break room, instead of making something really good, Carly just boiled some water to pour into a cup of dried ramen noodles. At least while she had been in town she has made it a point to have something tastier to eat for lunch. She let the noodles cook and cool a bit as she made her way down the corridor over to Scavenger's workshop. She had no desire to walk around wearing a blindfold but at least Bonecrusher had been up-front about what it was about her that bothered him (unlike Hook's vagueness.)

It had at first felt somewhat ridiculous to Carly that none of the Constructicons worked in the same space willingly when they were such a small group. Though considering how different even just Scavenger’s and Hook’s workspaces were it did make a little more sense now. The thing about Scavenger's workshop was that it was an ever-changing, nebulous thing. There were only a few shelves that had been permanently attached to the wall but everything inside the workshop on the shelves, the tables, the tools, and the projects, changed on a nearly daily basis.

Fortunately for Carly's sanity, Scavenger did know that not everyone could work as he did and had allowed for the permanent shelf that was the nearest to the workshop entrance to be Carly's own space. There she could keep her large tools, keep her projects organized, and keep items from getting lost in the constant shuffle of Scavenger's things.

She gathered up the Autobot explosive from where it sat on the shelf and was internally glad she had disconnected the fusion cell from the detonation charge while she was waiting to move onto the base at the motel. There had been no reason to negatively tempt fate, after all. 

While she was in the workshop amongst her things, she also switched out the clear safety glasses that she had been wearing with the dark green tinted welder's glasses that she had been keeping in the workshop, causing everything around her to become noticeably darker.

Bonecrusher's workshop was actually in the same corridor as Scavenger's and Long Haul's (there were three workshops on each side of the base with the break room and washroom in between the workshops) and so she didn't need to walk very far to arrive. 

The door to his workshop was open but instead of just walking inside she stood just outside the doorway and projecting her voice said, "Bonecrusher? I have the bomb you wanted me to bring to you."

"At least you don't drag things out like Long Haul does. Bring it here and I'll take a look at it later. Oh good, you covered your optics. Those optic shields really do make you look less creepy." Bonecrusher said as he pointed at a table that was so high up Carly had to reach over her head while standing on the tips of her toes to set the bomb components up on top of it. She was going to feel like a toddler compared to these guys for the rest of her life. 

Once she put up the bomb Bonecrusher tapped the top of her helmet to get her attention again and said, "I can't believe I need to tell a_ pet _this but I'm the demolition expert of the Constructicons and I've got a very important rule for you to follow. If you find or create_ anything _that could destroy the base I need to take a look at it first. Scavenger says you're mostly messing around with energon so keep an eye on two things. Firstly, if any of your energon begins to flash rapidly you have a very short amount of time before it goes critical and will explode. It wouldn't hurt one of us but you'd probably lose a servo since you're so puny. Secondly, _ don't bring Autobot's explosives into the base ever again! _ Now get outta here, I don't need you distracting me!"

Carly was glad the welder's glasses were dark enough for her to roll her eyes at him without any repercussion. Maybe now she could see how her cold generator was hanging with making energon. To her disappointment, the cold generator energon came out looking… strange to say the least. When the energon dispensed out into the cylinder, instead of being the usual somewhat liquid and somewhat energy state of matter that it usually came out as it had a fluffy texture that made it look more like holographic cotton candy. Her cold generator had made completely ruined energon as far as she could see.

Carly tried not to be upset. She was smart and was capable of making energon from many different energy sources now. Her evening had just been extremely draining so she was talking it harder than she ordinarily would've. It was just frustrating to her that her generator would ruin a batch of energon as thoroughly as it had. And turned the cold generator of and promised herself she would find another use for it before making her way towards the break room with nearly 10 astrolitres of fluffy energon.

She was nearing the break room when Long Haul and Mixmaster came in through the entrance of the base, Mixmaster had been speaking to Long Haul but as soon as he spotted Carly he had stopped and was now starting with his mouth slightly gaped open at the sight of the ruined batch of energon. "Is-is-is that what I think it is?"

Carly couldn't stop herself from blushing this time. "I ruined this batch, sorry. I was heading to the incinerator in the break room to get rid of it."

"Carly! You can't just dump wh-wh-whipped energon into an incinerator." Mixmaster said insistently.

Carly's eyes widened and she said, "You're right. The change in matter could've done something completely different to it. How do I get rid of all this stuff then? I can't just leave it out."

"Did you see if Scavenger wanted it first? You know since he's your_ favorite _?" Long Haul asked in a mixture of a sarcastic and teasing tone of voice. 

"I did ask if he wanted to be the taste tester but he's on repair duty this cycle and said he didn't want to get overcharged. It's probably a good thing since I messed up the energon so much." Carly said.

"It's not messed up, Carly. You made _whipped energon_. I haven't had any of this since before the war started." Long Hall said, sounding excited as he reached a servo out to take the energon from her, much to her surprise.

"I saw it fir-fir-first," Mixmaster said snappishly as he swatted Long Haul's arm down.

"So what. I can tell this is_ original flavored_, which was my favorite. You like whipped energon more when it has seven flavors minimum." Long Hall snapped back at Mixmaster irritably.

"You're saying you can actually eat this stuff?" Carly interrupted their developing fight as she part the side of the large energon cylinder she was using to transport the energon.

From the left side corridor Hook seemed to appear out of nowhere and as he picked the cylinder of whipped energon out from her hands said, "Of course whipped energon can be eaten. Before the war there were many different states of matter energon could take. Crystallized, filament, vaporized, and dusty energon are no longer possible to make for us. The liquid form is the easiest one to make so that's the kind everyone uses now. You usually need specialized equipment to make energon whipped, this doesn’t look like it tastes too bad."

Hook looked like he was going to take a bite of the whipped energon right then and there only Carly heard loud and fast clanging coming from the corridor behind her and wisely moved closer to the corridor wall just as Bonecrusher came from behind her and full-body tackled Hook before he could take the bite. “THAT’S MINE! I WANT IT MORE THAN YOU!”

The whipped energon cylinder fell to the floor and the four Constructiocons immediately started brawling with each other, trying to claim ownership over the treat. Carly could hardly believe it - the Constructicons did tend to aggressively knock, slap and hit each other around to emphasize their own points of view but she hadn’t ever seen them flat out_ fight _with each other. 

Scavenger came into the base, somewhat frantically and placed himself between the brawling foursome and Carly, which she thought was rather thoughtful of him. Especially since only a moment later Scrapper emerged from the corridor leading to his, Hook’s, and Mixmaster’s workshops and aggressively shouted, “That’s ENOUGH!”

The four brawling on the floor halted mid-tussle, each looking quite scuffed and dented. Scrapper snatched the whipped energon up from the ground and shook it upside down experimentally. The whipped energon stayed in place instead of splashing onto the ground as ordinary energon would have. He then turned his gaze to Carly, who had already moved to stand beside Scavenger instead of behind him.

“You made this?” Scrapper asked pointedly.

“Yes. I was using my cold generator to make energon and thought I messed it up so I was going to throw it away in the incinerator.” Carly said. 

Scrapper looked between Carly and the fluffy energon in his hand for a few moments before he finally said. “You made a noble class energon treat in _ Scavenger’s _ workshop by _ accident _?”

“Yes?” Carly said with a questioning tone, unsure if he was angry with her or not.

There were another few moments of silence before Scrapper addressed first Carly and then the entire gathered group. “Good work, human. I’ve decided to promote Scavenger’s pet to be _ Constructicon mascot_. Don’t let any of our esteemed comrades or the Autobots_ ever _get their servos on her. Also, if she ever ends up making crystallized energon I’m promoting her to be an official _ Constructicon Apprentice_. There’s enough of this to split between the six of us so that’s what we’ll do for now. Let’s take a well-deserved break, gentlemechs.”

As Carly watched the Constructicons divide up the energon to share amongst themselves she felt almost as though she had entered a warped reality. If she had known she would have gained the Constructicon’s (small increase of) respect by making the equivalent of robot chocolate mousse she would’ve been trying alternate energon methods a week ago. There was one thing about this entire situation that was nagging at her attention though.

“How did you all know I had this fluffy energon anyway? Only Long Haul and Mixmaster spotted me.” Carly asked Scavenger.

“Oh, that’s because one of them sent an alert out through our gestalt bond. It’s hard to ignore very loud thoughts of ‘_ Whipped energon! It’s whipped energon! I can’t believe it’s whipped energon!’ _ Over and over in your head,” Scavenger said with a pleased hum as he stuck his thin titanium pipe (Straw. It was a straw,) from his cube of whipped energon into the small intake valve on the underside of his mask to slowly sip it up like it was a thick milkshake. 

Carly nodded absently and then said, “A gestalt is something whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Is that a Cybertronian euphemism for being in a military unit then?”

Hook snorted and arrogantly scolded, “It’s thinking from a primitive human perspective like that which results in things like _cylindrical _ energon storage containers instead of the standard _ cubed _ ones. I had to redesign my entire transformation lock just because you couldn’t get the shape of a fuel cell up to the standard one.”

Carly huffed and said, “I just started making energon a few weeks ago, cut me a break next time. I can’t read your mind, you know.”

  
  


… Just Give Me Some Respect

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a (very) basic map of the layout of the Constructicon Drafting Base:


End file.
